


no more fading, the night is waiting

by lostin_space



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Depression, Hand wavy science, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Temporary Character Death, anti-miluca
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24472951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostin_space/pseuds/lostin_space
Summary: Michael is dead and his soulmate is suffering.
Relationships: Alex Manes & Kyle Valenti, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 31
Kudos: 183





	no more fading, the night is waiting

**Author's Note:**

> happy missing alex manes weekend, i'm gonna be late to work because of this lolololol

It was difficult to explain the loss of a soulmate when no one knew you had one in the first place.

"Alex, c'mon, I know it's hard, but it's been two weeks," Kyle said softly as he sat at the foot of the bed. Alex just laid there, staring blankly ahead.

Two weeks. Two weeks without Michael. Two weeks of that aching feeling in his chest. Two weeks of watching that pretty golden, leafy pattern fade from the skin covering his ribs. He hadn't looked at it in a week, too terrified to see if it was gone for good.

He remembered Isobel and Max stripping Michael to put him in the pod, sharing uneasy looks as they saw the soulmark they’d only seemed to notice then. He'd told Alex it was no one's business but his. His and Alex's. Sure, he knew other people had seen it, hook ups in particular, but most people knew not to touch spaces that weren't theirs to touch. 75% of the population had soulmarks, but only 10% had them as big as Alex and Michael's.

His body would be bare without it.

“You need to get out of bed,” Kyle urged. 

The request was an empty one and they both knew it. Alex had _tried_ to get out of bed before. Everything hurt and, if it didn’t hurt, it felt hollow. What was he without that warmth in his chest, that constant reminder that he wasn’t alone? 

“I know you miss him, but...”

“How much do you know about soulmates?” Alex asked softly. It’d been on his mind recently and he’d been too scared to look it up. The mark was fading. What happened when it faded completely? And what, really, was the point of the mark at all? Was it just there to mock you?

Kyle was quiet for a moment and Alex could feel the way the air shifted as he realized why he was asking.

“Oh, Alex,” he breathed, sounding far too much like an empathetic mother. He came closer without any more elaboration and Alex could’ve cried as he laid behind him. His arms wrapped around him and he curled against him, holding him and trying his damnedest to be the best friend he could be. This wasn’t something they did, but, fuck, he needed it.

A hot tear slid from his eye onto the pillow beneath his cheek. The worst part about losing Michael was that he didn’t really have anything left of him. They’d been on shitty terms at the time, so nothing smelled like him. Michael only had a few possessions and those were either taken over by someone else or they’d been sworn off for when he came back. If he came back. How long until they knew if he would or not?

“I’m so sorry,” Kyle told him, “Is... I hate to even ask, but is the mark still there?”

“Fading,” Alex admitted, voice weak. It hurt to say it out loud.

Kyle laid there for a minute with him, just holding him and giving him comfort. But then he jumped up. Alex usually would’ve been startled, but he was too tired to even have a feasible reaction time.

“Let me see it,” he demanded. Alex blinked slowly.

“What?”

“Let me see it,” Kyle repeated, grabbing Alex’s arms and forcing him to sit up, “If it’s still there and obvious enough, we might be able to save him. Do you know how strong the bond was on the Scale?”

“No,” Alex said, shaking his head. He’d always been too scared to figure it out. 

Still, he slowly started to take his shirt off. Kyle helped him get it off all the way and instantly started looking at the mark. It took up over half his chest and back, golden vines with leaves and thorns spreading from a place on his side. It mirrored Michael’s perfectly and, when they touched them, they would _glow._ He remembered how giddy both of them had been when they discovered that at 17, giggling at the rush it gave them to have things fall into place. They were so young; they found each other so early. The memory brought a new wave of tears.

Alex inhaled sharply as Kyle pressed his fingers into the fading mark, not nearly the same shimmery gold it’d been before, but it still rejected someone else’s touch all the same. Kyle looked at him with excited eyes.

“It still affects you?” he clarified. Alex nodded. “We need to get to the pod now.”

“Why? I can’t do anything,” Alex said, shaking his head. The idea of just having to relive losing Michael again was not something he could take. It was hard enough. He refused to get his hopes up.

But Kyle looked so sure.

“If this doesn’t work, you can kill me,” Kyle said, grabbing his hands, “But let me try.”

Reluctantly, Alex agreed.

-

Alex was weak.

He hadn’t been eating right and hadn’t been getting around and it made it nearly impossible to walk. He leaned on Kyle more than he wanted to and still sat down the moment he got into the cave, feeling even more drained. Everyone else was already there. Kyle had called them.

The secret was out.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Max demanded. Alex could barely hear him, his eyes forward.

Michael was beautiful even in death. He was in the pod, floating and looking more peaceful that Alex had ever seen him awake. Part of Alex wanted to crawl inside with him, block out the entire world and just be nothing together. That would fill that hole, it had to.

“He’s not Alex right now, yelling at him won’t help,” Kyle said, grabbing Max’s arm and pulling him away. _He’s not Alex right now._ Was that it? He wasn’t himself? Had Michael stolen a piece of him that big? “It can take months after the mark fades for soulmates to adjust. His mark is still there.”

Alex became a little more aware when Kyle was in front of him, holding a needle in front of his eyes and explaining they needed a blood sample from beneath the mark and, because of the placement, it might hurt. 

“What exactly are we doing?” Alex asked, eyes reluctantly leaving Michael for a moment.

“There’s a theory that if someone dies of natural causes, blood from their soulmate’s mark, as long as their bond is a 5 or higher, mixed with a hydrogen solution followed by a shock from a defibrillator can revive them if it’s within 30 minutes of their death,” Kyle explained, giving him a hopeful glance, “And he’s frozen in time.”

Alex refused to get his hopes up. He refused. Besides, if it worked, Michael didn’t want him. What was the point of wishful thinking?

His eyes drifted to Isobel and Max and Liz and Maria, all of them staring at him like they expected him to do this. This was his _job._ To bring him back for them. Maria didn’t even seem angry or guilty that he was his soulmate. Did she know? Would it hurt him more if she did?

Yes.

“He didn’t die of natural causes,” Alex said. He knew he didn’t. He saw the poison fill his bloodstream and light his veins on fire from the inside out, killing his entire nervous system in a quick fifteen minutes. It was the most horrifying fifteen minutes of his life.

“That poison they filled him with, though?” Kyle said, “It was a natural occurring chemical in aliens, just a higher dosage. I’m hoping it’ll still work.”

“It won’t.”

“Alex,” Isobel said, “Please. Let’s just try.”

It was then that he realized it wasn’t about him. It never really was, was it? So he leaned back and let Kyle do his thing.

His heart clenched like it always did when someone else touched his mark, his body rejecting anything that wasn’t Michael. When it faded completely, would he still feel it? It didn’t matter. Kyle brought his blood sample over to Liz and they got to work.

“Are you okay?” Maria asked him, coming closer. When he looked up at her, he had to question if she was joking or not. Did he look okay? She knelt in front of him and started to put a band-aid over where the blood had been drawn. “You two were a 7 on the Scale, you know that?”

His entire body hurt at that simple little statement.

“He told you that?” Alex asked. Had Michael taken the test without him? Had he figured out something Alex hadn’t? Did he know that and still chose to not want him? 

“No,” Maria sighed, giving a sad little smile, “But I’ve studied the different levels a lot. Always been curious of what I can’t have since I’m apart of the 25%. You two are a classic case of 7′s.”

“There’s cases of the 25% growing soulmarks after forming a bond,” Alex said because apparently his job was the comfort her when he felt like he was dying from a missing organ.

“Yeah, I know,” she sighed, “Silly me thought that maybe, since he’s alien, he could grow another one.”

Alex involuntarily flinched under her touch, feeling burned by that statement. She pulled her hands away and looked up at him.

“I was being selfish, Alex, and I’m sorry. I’m backing off,” she said. He furrowed his eyebrows, tears pricking his eyes as he shook his head.

“He’s dead, Maria,” Alex said, baffled by her insistence that now that she literally could not have him and that no one else could, _now_ she would let go, “There’s nothing to back off of.”

“The circumstances are good,” she responded, still somehow calm and collected, “It’s not over for you two.”

Maria stood up and walked back over to the other two aliens. Alex was cold and hurt and he wanted to leave, but he couldn’t seem to remove his eyes from the ridiculous necromancy his friends were trying to perform on his soulmate. 

Liz and Kyle pulled Michael out of the body, his body still slick and lifeless. They laid him out on a blanket and worked fast. Liz wiped down the spot over his mark and then quickly stabbed the syringe into it, filling him with Alex’s blood like this was normal. Alex, however, could feel it. He could feel the mark reacting and he could feel the way his blood mingled with Michael’s even though nothing was attached to him.

When Kyle grabbed the defibrillator and put it on his chest, shocking him to try and bring him back, Alex gasped. All eyes stayed on Michael, no one witnessing the way Alex began to burn from the inside out. His mark slowly but surely was strengthening, becoming more gold with each passing second and beginning to _glow._ It wasn’t a good feeling though. It hurt. It felt like this was the end.

Was this how Michael had felt in his last moments too?

It wasn’t until Alex had fallen forward onto his hands and knees, gasping for air, that anyone reacted. Isobel came to his side and tried to steady him, but it hurt all the same. This was a bad idea. Everything about this was bad. Bad, bad, bad, ba--

“Alex?”

Silence overcame the cave outside of Michael’s coughing. He would cough and then try to say Alex’s name and then cough again. Max brought him water and tried to help. Alex could barely even comprehend what was going on. He was still aching, but his eyes were on him. Because he was back.

“Alex?” he called again, “Are you okay?”

For the first time in weeks, Alex laughed. He laughed through the pain and laughed through the shock and laughed through everything.

“Am I okay?” he asked, still tired and weak and yet unable to take his eyes off his zombie soulmate. “You _died.”_

They stared at each other, unable to even factor in the fact that everyone else was still there. The whole cave was full of people and there was a large gap of space between them, but it was just them. Alex’s blood was still too hot beneath his skin, but his mark slowly began to relax once it knew he was okay. Once it knew they were bonded once more.

“Alex,” Michael said again.

“Michael,” Alex said right back. They both breathed and slowly sunk into the ground again. Reviving a whole man was exhausting.

But it didn’t matter. It worked. He was home.

**Author's Note:**

> also on my tumblr: spaceskam


End file.
